American lay theologian, economist, historian, and author who became a prominent neoconservative political theorist. Novak earned a B.A. from Stonehill College in North Easton, Massachusetts, in 1956 and a B.A. in theology from Gregorian University in Rome in 1958. He began graduate theological study at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and was ordained a priest in the Congregation of Holy Cross, but he left two years later, within months after ordination. He subsequently entered Harvard University, earning an M.A. in the history and philosophy of religion in 1966. Novak covered the Second Vatican Council for several periodicals from 1963 to 1964 and wrote a major report on the second session, The Open Church (1964). He became a professor of humanities at Stanford University that year, and in 1967 visited three of his students in Vietnam, where he also served as a monitor of national elections. From 1968 to 1973 he taught at the State University of New York at...